Hawkeye
by Skull-16
Summary: Set after ROTF. A new 'bot comes to Earth after almost a year of space travel and brings grim news to Optimus and Sideswipe. Titular character is an OC based on my favourite Marvel hero. Please read, review and enjoy. I own nothing unless specified.
1. Chapter 1

Hawkeye

He shot through the void at over 20 times the speed of sound. In the vacuum of infinite space, his smooth metallic carcass didn't make a sound; even with the dual plasma drive engines in his rear section flaring with enough intensity to rival a small star. He had left the great, yellow and orange orb the residents of this system called 'Saturn' behind him mere hours ago and just minutes ago had shot across 'Mars's' orbit. Now he was trying to decelerate as he swept into orbit around 'Earth's' natural satellite, planning how he was going to use the moon's orbit to slingshot him towards the blue, green and white planet.

Hawkeye was always searching for ways he could take advantage of his environment. It wasn't that he was lazy, quite the opposite. It was just how he worked: stealthily, skillfully, thriving in the confusion of battle. As long as he used his custom-made longbow and the appropriate arrows, it was almost impossible for him to miss his targets.

Hawkeye completed his brief arc into orbit and powered forward again, cruising towards the planet ahead of him. Minutes passed and he was almost in the junk field surrounding the planet. His external transition 'shell' powered through the pieces of abandoned satellites as he tilted his thrusters downward, expertly slipping through the atmosphere with the precision of a medic with a scalpel. His external skin rapidly started glowing red, then gold and then blue as he gathered heat. As his skin approached melting temperature, he broke through the final atmospheric layer and plunged down to a body of water. Seconds before impact, his transition skin crumbled away and he emerged for the fist time in almost a year as a 17-foot, silver, purple and black robot and holding his broad, 13-foot longbow in front of him like a wing, slid beneath the waves as parts of his shell plummeted haphazardly into the river.


	2. Chapter 2

Lights danced above the surface as he crawled along the riverbed. The ground was getting steeper, which meant he was getting closer and closer to dry land. He manoeuvred himself around and under the hulls of the water vessels bobbing above him as he crawled up the incline of the shore and got closer to the surface of the water. The twin prongs of his mauve chevron pierced the rippling surface, followed by his forehead and optics, stopping just as the bridge of his nose came up. He ignored the water vessels, deeming them to be too bulky and constructed of inferior materials. He quickly reasoned the organics walking by above him to be irrelevant as well, talking too animatedly to notice a sliver face in the river below them. Hawkeye diverted his attention straight to the ground vehicles above him, some just standing immobile as if their fleshy operators had left them there, others rumbling to and fro in the background.

He quickly spied a sleek, low-slung, 2-seater sports car and immediately scanned it, downloading every last measurement about it straight into his camouflage system and disappeared below the water once again before the organics could tell if anything had happened.

Hawkeye resurfaced just over a kilometre away under a highway bridge. Ignoring the gawks he got from the homeless humans he hid behind a concrete pillar and waited for a lull in the traffic. At the first chance he ran onto the road under the bridge's shadow and transformed. A silver and purple Dodge Viper 2009, looking fresh off the showroom floor emerged from under the bridge and sped back towards the city. Hawkeye decided immediately that he liked this form. His 10-cylinder engine purred as his wheels spun effortlessly their axles. As passed under a walkway, his long-range sensors shrieked at him, and he nearly did a double take. No less than seven energon signatures had suddenly blipped into existence less than two kilometres away. There was no real consistency with strength in the signatures, but Hawkeye quickly sorted them into recognisable groups: three weaker signals in relative proximity to each other clustered around a night club full of humans, three strong signatures seemingly patrolling the streets of the city and one very strong signal, more radiant than any one of the first six, sitting at the foundation of a half finished office building. Each signature represented a Cybertronian. A fellow Transformer.

Hawkeye could immediately see a pattern in the arrangement of the first three and last one signatures; it looked to him like the weakest mechs were acting as bait for the patrolling group, and the most powerful robot was in an ideal location to attack any unfortunate mech who was preoccupied with the 'bait' group. It all looked too much like a pitiful, amateurish attempt at an ambush. The fact that the three weakest mechs had not even tried to hide their energy signatures betrayed the simple fact that they had little, if not no, experience with strategies.

Having every intention of busting a few Decepticon helms, Hawkeye quickly set up a cloaking field to hide his energon signature, then gunned his engine and shot off into the city.


	3. Chapter 3

The trio of cars had been combing the streets of Perth for just less than two hours. Despite the fact that there was an assorted team of black clad American, British and Australian soldiers travelling parallel with the cars on equally black quad bikes, being inconspicuous was not a priority for the odd group. The silver Corvette Stingray and the two Camaros, one red and silver 2007 model and the other a green and black 1967, weren't exactly best buddies, but they respected each other to a greater or lesser degree.

The irregular convoy rounded the last bend and drove down the almost deserted street heading for the single main road heading along the shore of the Swan River. At the lead of the group, riding level with the front right wheel of the Corvette, the black American colonel stole a glance over his shoulder at the construction which he had just passed. The party of soldiers and cars left the office buildings behind and the road opened out onto a stretch with a gigantic grassed area to the right and a fenced off public garden to the left.

Abruptly, the African-American colonel held up his right fist. The entire motorcade halted as one. The colonel gestured for the leaders of the Australian and British soldiers to join him and two men broke out of formation from beside the red Camaro. The American leader, Robert Epps, addressed the two men beside him: "Richard, Matt, Sideswipe," he nodded to the British lieutenant, the Australian major and then the Corvette to his left respectively. "The night club on the main road. At the end of the pier." He pointed the thermal imager in his hand at the said building, just 100 metres away. The other two soldiers looked at the three red, yellow and orange globules of colour on the imager's screen.

"Positive ID as Cybertronian energy signatures." The Australian, Matt, said.

"_I'm gettin' all of it." _The voice of the silver Stingray came over the headsets of all soldiers. _"Sting. What can you tell me?"_

"_Dead End, Cannonball and Breakdown. All D-Cons, all losers." _The green Camaro reported from the back of the group.

"_And soon to be dead!"_ the comment came from the red Camaro.

"_Heel, Cliffjumper." _Sideswipe chided. _"We got three 'Cons here guys. Report said there's a Constructicon hanging around here too."_

"We're all well aware of that, Sideswipe." Richard said. "The question now is 'where is he?'"

"_Let's just offline those 'Cons and look for the Constructicon later!"_ Cliffjumper interjected impatiently.

"_I second that." _said Sting.

"_Okay. Let's spring the trap."_ Sideswipe approved as he moved on forward, leading the other two cars and the American and Australian soldiers into the obvious ambush.


	4. Chapter 4

"Race, set the EMP for 1.4 gigahertz. Everyone set your tactical radios to short wave UHF listening mode. Keep sharp." Matt said as he checked the sabot shells in his magazine.

All soldiers except for the leaders of each nationality reached to the radios in their chest packs and pressed the 'LIST. MODE' switches. The Australian soldier, Wallace Race, wordlessly dropped the backpack sized electromagnetic pulse generator off his shoulders and mutely turned the gigahertz dial up to '1.4'. With a controlled electromagnetic pulse, any device within the range of the generator which used a microprocessor, including digital cameras and phones, would be jammed. The pulse would even wipe magnetic film, so even outdated SLR (single lens reflex) cameras would be useless for the time the generator was active. As long as the soldiers kept their radio channels on frequencies _higher_ than the EMP, they would still be able to communicate.

Richard nodded in concurrence to Matt and signalled for the British troops to set up tripods and aim all arms at the three suspect cars.

The American and Australian soldiers approached the pier and halted thirty metres from the parking lot along the shoreline, each man and woman keeping their sights on the alternate-mode Decepticons. Just a few metres from the designated for the patron's cars, the limestone wall kept the waters of the Swan River at bay.

The trio of Autobots went further, dissolving the queue they had maintained and instead lining up side by side in an arc around the mission targets. One by one, the supercars reverted to their bipedal forms and deploying their signature weapons, Sideswipe poising his swords for a quick swipe or throw, Cliffjumper letting a nitro launcher drop into each hand from compartments in the sides of his chest and Sting letting three claws, snapping with electricity, slide over his hands from his forearms. Cliffjumper immediately stepped forward, the cannons in his hands trained on the black Dodge Magnum and the similarly coloured Audi R8. The Magnum and Audi transformed without warning. Bumpers, windows and panelling slid every which way as the two Decepticons reverted to their base, bipedal forms. The Autobots wasted no time attacking as Sting started firing bolts of electricity at the Magnum while Cliffjumper swiftly stepped back and unloaded salvo after salvo at the same mech. A barrage of sabot shells met the black and burgundy Audi R8 as he sprinted through the barricade of soldiers and bounded across the roadway, only for the tips of Sideswipe's swords to pierce through his chest plating as the silver Autobot's blades slid smoothly into his back. Sideswipe deftly pushed the Decepticon into the tarmac, forcing the blades even deeper in. The Decepticon groaned in agony as the swords inched further into his back.

"I got Dead End pinned. How's Cannonball?" Sideswipe called over his shoulder, keeping the swords protruding from his forearms embedded in such a way that Dead End didn't dare move as glowing blue energon leaked around the sword tips and dripped onto the street.

"He ain't goin' anywhere." Cliffjumper declared smugly. As Sideswipe had stabbed Dead End, Sting had boldly jabbed his claws into a gap in Cannonball's abdominal armour and sent out a plasma discharge that had sent the black Decepticon to his knees. Now Cliffjumper had his right in the middle of the bulky Magnum's back and with one of his nitro launchers pointed at the back of the Decepticon's head.

"Nicely done 'bots." Sideswipe said. "You're outnumbered and outmatched Breakdown. Surrender and you'll get a nice comfy stasis lock. If you fight, you'll die." He declared out loud, addressing the only Decepticon still in disguise.

The only response the Autobots got was the sound of an engine gunning and the sight of a white, red and blue Lamborghini Gallardo hightailing out of its parking space and rocketing down the roadway away from the nightclub at speeds no earth-made car could reach that quickly.

"He's mine!" Sting announced as he bounded away from Cannonball and transformed upon hitting the road. The green Camaro peeled after the escaping Decepticon, their engines roaring.

"Let Sting handle him." Sideswipe chided when he saw Cliffjumper taking his foot off Cannonball's back. It was then that all present hear a primal roar echoing out from the city and, despite having Cliffjumper's foot in his back and his cannon to his head, Cannonball laughed darkly.

"Here it comes." The Decepticon grinned sadistically as black coolant and blue energon leaked through his dental plates.

Sideswipe looked up toward the city and he saw the Constructicon he had so arrogantly overlooked. "Oh frag me."


End file.
